1. Field of the Invention
The present invention provides a lightweight multiple piston rotary cam radial engine formed of two primary components operatively engaged. More particularly, it relates an engine having its interior moving parts operatively engaged within a body portion which when mated with a retaining ring which maintains cylinders in place and provide a plurality of pathways for translation of the rods in a rotary configuration with distal ends of reciprocating rods operatively radially engaged to rotate a surrounding rotating cam. The device is rendered easy to assemble and disassembly by the separation of the body and retaining ring components to allow for replacement of cylinders and pistons. The retaining component also doubles as a guide for re assembling the pistons and rods in their defined positions.
The engine is capable of communicating rotational power for work to the rotating radial cam, through the generation of power from a variety of different power sources which when communicated to a cylinder will translate the pistons and engaged rods. Such externally produced power for example can be steam from wood or fuel powered heat, compressed gas, and pumped or gravitationally powered streams such as water elevated and communicated to the device. The resulting simplicity in both construction and disassembly and repair, and the multiple means for powering the device, makes it especially novel and useful in rural areas of first work countries, and all areas of third world countries in general.
Powering fluid streams communicated to the cylinders can also be powered by a secondary power production device such as a windmill or water wheel to communicate a pressurized or moving fluid stream to the device located locally, such as in a village, from a water wheel or windmill or boiling water station located in a more remote or inhospitable location. Power to perform work such as pumping well water or generating electricity is provided locally as is maintenance.
Not only is the assembly and disassembly of the device rendered easy by the simple engagement of the body having cylinders therein and retaining ring having pathways for cylinders and rods, the no-fastener design and configuration, simplifies engine assembly and disassembly to novel new levels in it is configured to form the pathways for the assembly of pistons and rods which are easily discerned by users with minimal or no mechanical training. Further, the actual assembly of the various internal components with little to no use of conventional fasteners for engagement, and the two component mating of body and radial cam, with minimal fasteners, thus allows a user with limited knowledge to easily disassemble the device for maintenance or servicing of the various components.
The disclosed engine herein can thus provide simple to operate and maintain, low cost rotational power, for turning a rotary pump, or an electric generator operationally engaged or formed in a combination with a rotor assembly comprising a plurality of magnets and a stator assembly comprising a plurality of coil windings which are operationally engageable in the engine assembly.
In at least one preferred mode configured for producing electricity, the introduction of a powering fluid flow is provided by a remote windmill powering a mechanical pump which communicates pressurized air, or more dense fluid, through conduits directly to the device, or to elevated storage tanks to store the power for later use. When communicated through the valve system to the cylinders, the fluid or steam imparts force to power piston reciprocation and rod translation, within the rotary configured engine. The rotating cam, powered by the rotationally engaged rods, may be engaged to a generator, or the device may be formed in combination with a rotor and stator as an electrical alternator. In another mode, the engine, upon receiving power from force of fluid or pressurized gas which expands in the cylinders to reciprocate the pistons, can provide a communication of rotational mechanical drive through the operative engagement of a wheel or shaft to the rotating cam.
In all modes a simple body and retaining ring assembly provides the formed pathways for pistons and rods and other moving components, as well as a visual guide for component placement and assembly, with minimal fasteners to get lost or break in environments where repairs would be a problem.
2. Prior Art
A steam engine is a mechanical device used to transfer the energy of steam into mechanical energy for a variety of applications, including propulsion and generating electricity. The basic principle of the steam engine involves transforming the heat energy of steam into mechanical energy by permitting the steam to expand and cool in a cylinder equipped with a movable piston. Steam that is to be used for power or heating purposes is usually generated in a boiler. The simplest form of a boiler is a closed vessel containing water, which is heated by a flame so that the water coverts to saturated steam.
Steam engines, heat engines using boiling water to produce mechanical motion, have a long history, going back at least 2000 years. Early devices were not practical power producers, but more advanced designs producing usable power have become a major source of mechanical power over the last 300 years, enabling the industrial revolution, beginning with applications for mine water removal, using vacuum engines.
Subsequent developments using pressurized steam and conversion to rotary motion enabled the powering of a wide range of manufacturing machinery anywhere water and coal or wood fuel could be obtained, previously restricted only to locations where water wheels or windmills could be used. Significantly, this power source would later be applied to prime movers, mobile devices such as steam tractors and railway locomotives. Modern steam turbines generate about 80 percent of the electric power in the world using a variety of heat sources.
Steam powered engines were the first engine type using pressurized fluid to drive pistons to generate power, to see widespread use. They were first invented by Thomas Newcomen in 1705, and James Watt who made big improvements to steam engines in 1769. The steam engine developed by James Watt is generally credited as being the first efficient steam engine. A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid to impart pressure to a cylinder to reciprocate a piston to turn a shaft which delivers power to be employed for work. Steam engines are typically external combustion engines, that is to say the heat generating the pressurized gas for power, is generated externally, although other external sources of heat to produce expanding pressurized fluid such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be used. The heat cycle is known as the Rankine cycle.
There have been many newer and more recent innovations to the steam engines and they have generally continued using high-pressure steam as a driving force requiring extremely heavily constructed equipment. These types of steam engine normally work with a piston that drives a central output shaft.
Pneumatic motors operate on a similar application of compressed air instead of steam. These motors are generally smaller and lighter weight and operate at high revolutions.
With the need for efficient energy generation, there is a growing requirement for lighter weight, economical motors to be used on different applications, capable of using a variety of different power generating sources including, but not limited to steam. These power sources could also include compressed air, compressed gases, combustion of gasses, and pressurized fluids.
Numerous innovations for steam engines and air-operated motors have been provided in the prior art that are described as follows. Even though these innovations may be suitable for the specific individual purposes to which they address, they differ from the present design as hereinafter contrasted.
It is especially noted that many advancements of prior art technologies, seem to have driven innovations that are highly specific and extremely narrow in application, while often employing expensive and impossible to service components, resulting in the average consumer being unable to put these device to use.
Historically and even currently, the most reliable and most powerful engines throughout the world have been and are steam engines. Our largest commercial and military ships contain final drives which employ steam engines. The early steam driven vehicles were simple and powerful for their engine sizes and were preferable to having to feed and care for a horse.
The petroleum age provided the even more convenient gasoline engine which resulted in the halting the further advance of steam engine design. Now, in clear and simple retrospect, more than any industry, the petroleum industry as an energy source, has resulted in large scale health, weather and environmental damage into the ecology world wide. Oil resources and availability are becoming more limited and its costs have begun rising rapidly. Oil and electricity have become the primary resources providing the energy that the world has become dependent on. The petroleum industry besides its world destructive influence has grown huge and complex right down to its distribution systems which are absent in remote area and crippled in a disaster situation. Electricity still appears to be a reasonably clean source of energy but is no different in its need of a common complex system to distribute it. In a large disaster situation, its distribution system is crippled. Even in heavily populated areas, black outs and brown outs from our central utility companies are becoming more common. Even the temporary loss of electric power often result in deaths, losses of important services, loss of food storage refrigeration, heating or cooling in extreme weather conditions, the ability for service stations to provide fuel used for transportation, police and fire departments lacking power beyond what their temporary supply of fuel will provide, individual medical devices are unusable, hospitals have only a limited supply of emergency power without additional fuel supplies, a long list exists. When a natural disaster occurs such has become common in recent years, entire populations are left for significant lengths of time with no power.
The following is a summary of those prior art patents most relevant to this application at hand, as well a description outlining the difference between the features of the Rotary Cam Radial Steam Engine and the prior art.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,967,535 of Murry I. Rozanski describes a uniflow steam engine of the multi-cylinder type wherein the cylinders are rotatably mounted within a jacket having a sinusoidal cam track therein. Extending through slots, the ends of which are the exhaust ports in the cylinders and into the cam track are cam followers, which are mounted on the pistons for reciprocal movement therewith. At the head end of the cylinders, there are apertures which rotate with registered cutouts in superimposed valve rings that control the flow of steam from manifolds at the head ends of each of the cylinders into the cylinders as the cylinders rotate. By adjusting the relative position between the valve rings, the length of time of steam introduced on each cycle may be adjusted and by concomitantly rotating both valve rings, the initial time for introduction of steam may be adjusted to alter lead or reverse torque.
Rozanski describes a multi-cylinder unconventional uniflow type of steam engine in a compact design. By using a multi-cylinder type, wherein the cylinders are rotatably mounted within a jacket having a sinusoidal cam track, it differs in that the Rotary Cam Radial Steam Engine uses one or more pistons with a revolving rotating outer cam ring. It also differs from the multi-cylinder unconventional uniflow type in that the Rotary Cam Radial Steam Engine can be very light weight and can be made primarily of plastic.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,132,213 of R. Homer Weaver describes a rotary engine having a power output shaft, a drive unit for rotating the shaft, the drive unit including a rotary drive element affixed to the shaft, and a stationary element for supporting the shaft rotatably. A pair of diametrically spaced, rotatable, paddle-like pistons are mounted on the rotary drive element. The paddle-like pistons rotate into and out of opposing, complementary cavities formed in the rotary drive element and in the stationary element. The complemented cavities function as revolving cylinders or chambers for the reception of a high pressure, expansible fluid. The expansible fluid drives the pistons to impart rotation to the rotary element, to drive the power output shaft. A source of high pressure expansible fluid is provided, together with a valve system connecting the fluid source to the drive unit. The valve system is automatically operative to discharge the fluid under high pressure into the drive unit chambers at periodic intervals. The source of high-pressure fluid may comprise a compressor having a construction similar to that of the drive unit, for receiving and compressing a fuel and air mixture. The engine is adaptable to be utilized as a gasoline internal combustion engine, a diesel engine, a steam engine, or any other type of engine using high pressure, expansible fluids.
Weaver describes a rotary engine having a power output shaft. It differs in that it uses rotatable paddle like pistons mounted on a rotary drive element using high pressure instead of a conventional piston. This device would require it to be made of a heavy material that would be capable of taking the high pressure and could not be made of plastic or materials not capable of sustaining high stress levels.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,364,249 of Donald M. Link tells of a rotary steam engine that has a working chamber, with first and second cylindrical rotors mounted in overlapping cylindrical chamber portions for rotation about respective parallel axes, connected by gears for synchronized rotation. The first rotor has at least one pusher extending radially outward of the first rotor's circumferential surface, and the second rotor's, circumferential surface has a corresponding at least one indenture shaped to receive the pusher during rotation of the two rotors. Side plates attached to the first rotor for rotation with the first rotor, press against spring-loaded seals and the second rotor to provide improved sealing with minimum wear.
The device of Link, however, teaches a rotary steam powered engine that does not use pistons or a cam action as does the Rotary Cam Radial Steam Engine. It is another steam engine that could not be made of plastic or low stress materials because of the internal forces that it develops.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,128,903 of Carl Ralph Riege describes a device that is a simplified solar steam engine. It consists of a sole reciprocating piston within a slotted cylinder. A piston-actuating arm extends through the slot to provide the power take off. The actuator arm also provides the power to a slide valve within an input/output (I/O) manifold that directs the steam correspondingly to each end of the steam engine to move the piston back and forth. The actuator arm provides the power directly to a load such as a pump piston which in turn also requires the back and forth movement to provide air pressure for air tools. Water jet propulsion power could be provided for small boats like kayaks or canoes and the like. Even compression for home air conditioners may be possible.
Riege describes a simplified solar steam engine that consists of a sole reciprocating piston within a slotted cylinder. It does not make use of multiple cylinders or a rotating outer cam ring. On this device, the manifold directs the steam correspondingly to each end of the steam engine to move the piston back and forth.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,862,973 of Jeffery Rehkemper et al. describes one embodiment a pneumatic motor that is provided including an intake chamber in fluid communication with at least one intake channel Each intake channel is further in fluid communication with a corresponding cylinder, which receives a piston that cycles upwardly and downwardly to rotate a motor axle. A member is placed in each intake channel to seal the corresponding cylinder from each intake channel when the compressed fluid in the intake channel has a higher pressure than pressure in the corresponding cylinder. Each piston includes an actuator extending downwardly from the piston and having a profile that, during a portion of the upward cycle of the piston, causes the actuator to push the member back into each intake channel to allow compressed fluid into each of the corresponding cylinders. Each piston includes an intermediate section that has an annular recess, a seal positioned in the recess that creates a fluid tight seal against the corresponding cylinder during the upward cycle of the piston. Compressed fluid that enters the corresponding cylinder during the upward cycle will push the piston upwardly. Each section further includes exhaust grooves defined thereon such during the downward cycle of the piston the, seal is broken allowing compressed fluid in the cylinder to bypass the piston and escape through a vent above each cylinder. This causes the compressed fluid in the intake channel to push the member to re-seal the cylinder. The upward movement of the piston further generates inertia that moves the piston downward to continue the cycle
Rehkemper et al. describes a pneumatic motor that could be steam driven, but it does not operate by the means of multiple cylinders driven by a single central rotating valve or function by the means of a rotating outer cam ring.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,536,943 of Edward Pritchard discloses a steam engine with improved intake and exhaust flow provided by separate pairs of intake and exhaust ports located at both ends of a steam drive cylinder. A slide valve located adjacent to the drive cylinder provides for timed sealing of intake and exhaust ports during operation. Exhaust is facilitated by the provision of two paths of exhaust from the cylinder and the exhaust ports may be adjusted for a flow volume to meter exhaust steam flow to significantly reduce back pressure only at low speeds of said engine.
Pritchard discloses a steam engine with improved intake and exhaust flow provided by separate pairs of intake and exhaust ports using a piston that is driven from the top and bottom by the means of a valve that moves up and down. It does not make use of multiple cylinders or a rotating outer cam ring.
None of these previous efforts, however, provides the benefits attendant with the herein disclosed Rotary Cam Radial Steam Engine. The present design achieves its intended purposes, objects and advantages over the prior art devices through a new, useful and unobvious combination of method steps and component elements, with the use of a minimum number of functioning parts, at a reasonable cost to manufacture, and by employing readily available materials.
In this respect, before explaining at least one embodiment of the Rotary Cam Radial Steam Engine in detail, it is to be understood that the design is not limited in its application to the details of construction and to the arrangement, of the components set forth in the following description or illustrated in the drawings. The Rotary Cam Radial Steam Engine is capable of other embodiments and of being practiced and carried out in various ways.
In addition, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology employed herein are for the purpose of description and should not be regarded as limiting. As such, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the conception, upon which this disclosure is based, may readily be utilized as a basis for designing of other structures, methods and systems for carrying out the several purposes of the present design. It is important, therefore, that the claims be regarded as including such equivalent construction insofar as they do not depart from the spirit and scope of the present application.